6-month jail for lady tutor who horrified Bengal with inhuman torture on toddler

Kolkata: It was in July 2014 when entire Bengal was shaken up in horror witnessing the CCTV footage of a private tutor assaulting and flinging to the floor a toddler for failing to remember lessons.

The incident had taken place in a household at Lake Town in north-east Kolkata and four years since this, a court has today sentenced the private tutor Puja Singh to six-months in jail and has slapped Rs 1,000 fine. Failing to pay the fine will lead to another three months in jail.

After the Bidhannagar additional chief judicial magistrate Subhra Som Ghosal pronounced the sentence, the convicted private tutor appealed for bail. The court granted the plea so to allow her to challenge the order in a higher court.

Singh, in her 40’s, used to give private tuition to a girl child of the Agarwal family who lives in a flat at Lake Town area. The family has CCTV cameras installed in most parts of their flat and while scanning the footage from the camera installed in the study of the child, they were terrified to discover the inhuman torture by Singh on their child.

On 23 July they lodged an FIR at Lake Town police station and also passed on the CCTV footage to TV channels in Kolkata. The next day, accused tutor Singh was arrested and a case was initiated against her.

“During the hearing, the child made closed-door deposition before a magistrate narrating what she went through. Apart from the CCTV footage, this significantly helped in the conviction of the accused tutor under Indian Penal Code sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 341 (wrongful restraint),” said special public prosecutor Bibhash Chatterjee.

The lawyer representing the convict tutor said that his client will appeal against this in the Calcutta High Court soon and seek an acquittal.

NEWSMEN is an online news portal focused on news and views from Bengal and the Bengali / Bengal diaspora spread all over. Coinciding with the 73rd anniversary of the Quit India Movement, NEWSMEN went live over the world-wide-web on 09 August 2015.